


California Gold

by xsaturated



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsaturated/pseuds/xsaturated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine is exploring his options. Sebastian thinks it’s about time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	California Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Seblaine Week 2013, Day One: College!AU.

Blaine liked to call it “exploring his options.”

His roommate called it messy rebound sex and frequently requested that it happen somewhere other than their dorm room when he needed to study. Blaine wasn’t entirely sure his roommate did anything other than study, the guy spent most of his time in the library or eating noodles out of a mug while he worked on Theology papers in the dark.

Blaine didn’t particularly mind. The pervasive smell of instant ramen didn’t exactly promote the mood he wanted to be setting anyway.

Something about California felt a lot like freedom, like cutting the ties that bound him to the east coast and Ohio and conquering uncharted territory was in some way reclaiming the parts of him that he had let slip away over the past three years of his life. And after the mess that was his senior year, the ugly affair of a crushed heart and the money back from a pawned engagement ring, of rediscovering what it meant to really have friends again and value them; Blaine was starting to think that was exactly what he needed. He’d spent long enough wrapped up in a relationship that was long over; this was his chance to expand his own horizons.

There was something kind of wonderful about living in freefall.

And if what he needed could be found in one of the many bars that were overpopulated with students with bad fake ids on any given night of the week - well, college was supposed to be about finding yourself, but maybe he needed to lose who he thought he’d been first.

Thursdays were always overcrowded, loud and exciting. The night was early, Blaine had barely drank half a beer, but he was already feeling restless and the warm hugs of greeting and the bubbly laughter of well meaning friends wasn’t holding his attention. There’d been a boy last week - a brown-eyed boy with a wicked smile whose stubble had scraped his skin red - and Blaine couldn’t help but wonder if he would see him again. If he wanted to see him again.

“Someone’s watching you.”

Blaine turned curiously to the girl leaning against his side - a friend of a friend, Maggie, if he remembered rightly- following her pointed nod in the direction of the bar. Even after almost a year, across a crowded bar - well, if there was one thing Sebastian Smythe was not, it was forgettable. Apparently, by the tilt of his head and the invitation written in his smile, neither was Blaine.

“He’s cute,” she encouraged, nudging at his side with an elbow, “Totally fuckable. Am I right?”

The latter was addressed to the rest of the table, a fact that Blaine fielded with a grimace and a dismissive wave of his hands with a collected, “He’s an old .. friend,” as he slid out of his seat, surprised at just how easily he could tune out the embarrassing catcalls that followed in his wake.

Something about the way Sebastian’s eyebrows inched upwards as he approached, the sweep of his eyes crawling up from his toes, prickled at his memories. It was familiar, too familiar. Blaine wasn’t interested in familiar.

The initial surprise wore into something closer to annoyance as he said, “Sebastian,” quickly followed by a perhaps too blunt, “What are you doing here?”

The familiar smile sharpened, the corners of lips twitching as he leaned in, just a little as Blaine’s approach came to a standstill, “Claws away, Anderson, I’m not stalking you. I just happen to be having a drink in the same bar as you.”

A flush of embarrassment crawled in beneath his skin and he tilted his head back, eyeing Sebastian thoughtfully before he asked, “Why this bar?”

“Same reason as you,” Sebastian pointed out, tipping his head to the side in an invitation for Blaine to follow as he started to move away from the bar and Blaine did so, eyes fixed on the length of Sebastian’s neck as he turned his head back towards him to reply, “Cheap drinks for students.”

“You go to-” Blaine started to ask, eyes widening incredulously as the loud buzz of conversation dulled the further they moved away from the bar.

“Go Bears.”

The broad, sarcastic smile on Sebastian’s face wasn’t a new one, but it was easy in a way Blaine didn’t remember it being. There had always been something that had spoken of effort in the way Sebastian approached him back in Ohio, something a little contrived or calculated. Blaine wasn’t sure how that had changed, but he liked it, none the less.

If there was one thing he wasn’t interested in, it was falling back into old routines.

“I haven’t seen you around campus,” Blaine pointed out, the coincidence buzzing in his head as he sunk down into the seat opposite the one Sebastian had claimed. There was a pair of dark shapes panting up against the wall not so far away, taking advantage of the lower lighting, and a part of him felt like he should be embarrassed by their sheer proximity. That was the old Blaine.

Sebastian quirked an eyebrow, eyes sliding in the general direction with a curl of his lip before they fixed back on Blaine, like he was anticipating a reaction, laughter hiding behind his eyes as he replied, “It’s a big campus. I saw you around a few times, but I wasn’t sure if you would want to see me, so.”

The shrug was nonchalant, the expression contrived to look casual, but Sebastian had never been particularly subtle.

“It’s kind of a shock,” Blaine admitted after a moment, struck by the way the dim lighting shadowed Sebastian’s face, pooled in new lines of definition. He’d always been handsome, but Blaine couldn’t help but think time had made him more so. It was strange, seeing a familiar face after so pointedly surrounding himself with new ones for so long. “Surprisingly not a bad one, I don’t think.”

A snort of laughter followed, Blaine watching as fingers fluttered through the air as though Sebastian couldn’t figure out what to do with them before they landed over his heart, eyes bright as he leaned in across the table to reply, “You’re lucky I’m not easily offended, Blaine. I’d wonder how you ever manage to pick up, but I know how good your ass looks in those jeans.”

Blaine choked back his surprise, huffing out a laugh as he stared Sebastian down across the table, summoning up a smile as he asked, “What makes you think I’m trying to pick you up?”

The smile that crawled across Sebastian’s face was smug, lips twitching as he replied, “Oh, I’ve been warned about you. ‘Watch out for that one, he’s a heartbreaker, you should be careful around him.’ You’ve got quite a reputation going for you, Killer.”

Blaine shook his head, the wash of embarrassed heat rising up his neck determinedly ignored, as he laughed out an awkward, “Nobody said that.”

“They definitely did,” Sebastian confirmed, the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips a shade too smug for Blaine to entirely appreciate. “Not that I mind, Anderson. I knew you were a heartbreaker the day I met you.”

“I’m not breaking any hearts,” Blaine replied, narrowing his eyes as he leaned forward onto his elbows, “I’m just exploring my options.”

Blaine couldn’t help but think that the answering smile on Sebastian’s face was kind of brilliant, still a little bit stunning after all this time. Perhaps more so from the time he’d spent away from it.

“I’d say it’s about time.”

—

The third time it happened Sebastian got halfway through the sentence, “Is this about -” before Blaine silenced him with a kiss, fingers fisting in hair that was shorter than it had been the last time Blaine saw him. Comments about CW hair ricocheted through his thoughts but he pushed them away, biting at Sebastian’s top lip before he slid his hands up the back of Sebastian’s shirt and tugged him in closer.

In high school he’d been a little bit in awe of Sebastian, then a little bit exasperated. A part of him had never quite been able to keep his balance around him. Strange that now whenever he starts to lose his footing, it’s Sebastian he crashes into.

No, Blaine wasn’t sure what he wanted from Sebastian, but he did know it wasn’t about anyone outside of that room.

That, perhaps, was why he kept going back.

—

Paint was smeared across his face, smudges of California gold and Yale blue up his arms and staining the collar of his shirt. His head was swimming and dazed and everywhere around him was filled with loud, blaring music and jubilant yelling. A hand closed around his elbow and he followed the insistent tug, licking his lips as he slipped through the crowd, batting confetti from his hair with his free hand when he walked into a fistful spiralling through the air.

His back met the wall with a thud, head spinning as he tipped his chin up and grinned into the sight of green, green eyes. There were smears of paint rubbed off across Sebastian’s skin, a mess that matched the missing pieces of his own, and the night air was starting to get cold but he was too warm anyway and it didn’t really matter when cool hands met the warm skin of his waist.

“I like it here,” Blaine hummed happily, eyes fixed and warm, stuck on the angle of Sebastian’s smile when he moved in so close, “I like me here.”

A laugh rumbled up Sebastian’s chest, fanning warm across Blaine’s ear when he turned his head aside to let it loose. Blaine could see the flutter of his eyelashes, a scatter of freckles showing through a smear of paint. His voice low, roughened by alcohol as he scoffed, “You’re an adorable drunk, did anyone ever tell you that?”

“You just did,” Blaine replied, hands skimming over the lines of Sebastian’s shoulders.

Another laugh followed and Blaine caught the edge of a genuine smile, something small and private, before Sebastian turned back to look down at him in earnest, his thumbs tracing circles into Blaine’s hips as he said, “Okay, Sunshine, I think the party’s over for you.”

Humming back his own laugh, Blaine followed the light tug on his wrist, tipping his head back to soak in the atmosphere and beaming up at the ceiling.

—

“For the record,” Sebastian said as he dropped down next to him, Blaine blinking away the after image of light from his vision as his mattress bounced with the shift in movement, “I like you here too.”

Blaine could hear the soft snoring of Sebastian’s roommate, his lips twitching at the corners as he rolled up onto his side to face Sebastian in the dark.

“I like you everywhere,” he replied, blinking heavily against the dimly-lit contours of Sebastian’s face before rolling in to press his lips against the corner of his jaw.

He felt the jump of muscle in Sebastian’s cheeks, the curve of a smile denied beneath a soft, “Go to sleep, you’re drunk.”


End file.
